@15 Way 2 Tech@: 2017

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Expect four new expansions for 'Battlefield 1' this year

If you're a Battlefield 1 fan, get ready to open your wallet and jump into even more WWI-inspired battles. Gaming heavyweights EA and DICE just revealed four new expansion packs for its popular first-person shooter. All four expansions are included in this brand-new annual Premium Pass, which is available for XBox One, PS4 and PC via EA's Origin service. Each expansion will be available for purchase separately with the first entry, "They Shall Not Pass," available to premium members on March 14 and March 28 for non-premium players.

This first expansion has you joining the fight as a French soldier to battle across four new maps including Verdun Heights, Fort De Vaux, Soissons and Rupture. There's a new game mode, too, called Frontlines, which has two teams fighting for control points in what EA calls "a tug-of-war frontline." The pack also includes two new tank units, an elite trench raider soldier class and a new stationary weapon, the Siege Howitzer.

The three other expansions, titled "In the Name of the Tsar," "Turning Tides" and "Apocalypse" feature Russian battles, amphibious warfare, and the most infamous battles of the Great War, respectively.

The $49 Premium Pass will give you all current and future expansions, 14 superior Battlepacks (in-game loot), two-week early access to expansions as they release and 16 new multiplayer maps. In addition, you'll be able to play with new elite classes, armies, 20 new weapons and extra game modes.

You'll need the original game to take advantage of the Premium Pass. The Battlefield 1 standard edition currently retails for $30 with various bundles available for more.

Google pulls the plug on its Pixel laptops

Although its new flagship phones have been doing brisk sales, Google's high-end, $1,299 Pixel-branded Chromebooks won't be seeing much love from the search giant in the near future. According to TechCrunch, reporting from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Google's SVP of hardware Rick Osterloh has announced the second version of the Pixel laptop will be the last of its kind.

As TechCrunch notes, Google is trimming down the Pixel line to just the smartphones and the Pixel C tablet for now. Although there may be other devices carrying the name in the future, Osterloh said it was unlikely that its own laptops would be one of them. And don't hold your breath if you were in the market for a Pixel 2 yourself: the company sold out of them back in August and has no plans to restock them. Chrome OS is staying put, however, and users will still be able to buy third-party Chromebooks. "Google hasn't backed away from laptops," Osterloh said. "We have the number two market share in the U.S. and U.K. — but we have no plans for Google-branded laptops."

Click here to catch up on the latest news from MWC 2017.

NVIDIA reveals its $700 top of the line GTX 1080 Ti

Last year we called NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 "the upgrade you've been waiting for," and now PC gamers have another high-end graphics card to drool over. At GDC 2017, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang presented its successor, the GTX 1080 Ti, which promises "35 percent more performance," packs 11GB of GDDR5X memory and will go on sale March 10th for $700. In fact, NVIDIA even claims this new card is faster than its $1,200 Titan X that launched late last year for professionals. At the same time, the company announced the 1080 is getting a price cut and will now start at $500.

So what makes this iteration run so fast? Its 11GB of VRAM is apparently the first use Micron's "G5X" memory, capable of 11Gbps bandwidth, making it ready for any VR or 4K/5K HDR gaming you have in mind. The GPU itself is manufactured on a FinFET process, and a new thermal solution keeps everything cool. Preorders will open on March 2nd, at 11AM ET.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from GDC 2017!

NASA goes ahead and buys Russian rides to space station through Boeing

NASA has agreed to purchase at least two trips to and from the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, from an unlikely ticket-seller: the Boeing Co.

The arrangement follows through on a convoluted plan laid out back in January, and provides a cushion for the space agency in case Boeing and SpaceX can’t provide space taxis for NASA’s use by 2019.

Ever since the shuttle fleet’s retirement in 2011, NASA has been buying trips from the Russians at escalating prices. The latest purchase, for seats on Soyuz craft to be launched in 2018, amounted to $82 million per seat.

The per-seat price for the Boeing buy will be $74.7 million.

Boeing picked up the rights to the additional Soyuz seats as part of the settlement for a $320 million-plus debt owed by Russia’s Energia space company. Those debts were incurred while Energia subsidiaries were working with Boeing on the Sea Launch joint venture. (Boeing is no longer part of that venture.)

Buying two rides from Boeing will let NASA beef up its representation on the space station in the fall of 2017 and the spring of 2018. NASA also has the option to purchase three more rides from Boeing in 2019 if SpaceX’s Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner space taxis aren’t ready to fly astronauts by then.

The current schedule calls for both companies to start crewed flights in 2018, but in a report issued this month, the Government Accountability Office said 2019 was a more likely start date due to the technical challenges the companies are encountering.

NASA announced that it was going through with the Boeing buy on Feb. 21.

ResearchGate reports $52 million funding round, including cash from Bill Gates

Berlin-based ResearchGate, a LinkedIn-type site for scientists, today revealed that it has received $52.6 million from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and a wide spectrum of other investors in a funding round.

The investment round closed in 2015, but it’s just now being reported due to German regulatory requirements.

New investors for this round included the Wellcome Trust, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and Four Rivers Group, with participation from the likes of Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher and French entrepreneur Xavier Niel.

Gates re-upped after investing in a previous $35 million round for ResearchGate. Benchmark, Founders Fund and Tenaya Capital are among the other investors who added to their previous stake.

In a statement, ResearchGate co-founder and CEO Ijad Madisch said he was excited to bring the new investors on board.

“On ResearchGate, for the first time in history, millions of scientists are speaking out and providing transparency into their current research,” Madisch said. “ResearchGate has become the place where scientific progress happens – and where everyone can learn about it.”

In the 15 months since the funding round closed, ResearchGate launched a feature called Projects that keeps scientists up to date about the work being done by the colleagues in their network. The site lets more than 12 million members share over half a million updates daily, with 2.5 million publications added each month (including seldom-reported negative results).

ResearchGate noted that it has also implemented an advertising model that focuses on scientific goods and services as well as job matching.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Nintendo Switch will launch without a Virtual Console

With the Switch launch only eight days away, Nintendo has finally broken its silence on what online features gamers can expect at launch. Disappointingly, the gaming giant revealed that early adopters won't be able to dip into the game company's vast back catalog, with Nintendo confirming that the Switch's Virtual Console service won't be there day one.

In a bid to appease fans, Nintendo has revealed that the F-Zero inspired indie racer FAST RMX will be arriving on the eShop day one, alongside two entries in the Shovel Knight series. Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment is the game's latest campaign which will be a timed exclusive for the Nintendo Switch. Alongside this, Yacht Club Games will also be bringing Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove to the eShop for launch - which serves as a collection of all the existing series content to date.

In addition to these last-minute launch titles, Nintendo has confirmed that 2017 will see over 60 different 'Nindie' games hitting the eShop on Switch. The Kyoto-based company has revealed that it will talk more about the flurry of new indie titles coming to Switch during a video presentation next Tuesday.

Gamers who have already added funds to the eShop on 3DS or Wii U will be pleased to learn that their balance will carry over, thanks to Switch's use of Nintendo Network IDs. The announced also revealed that Switch's home screen will include a News feature, updating gamers on the latest additions to the eShop and other Nintendo-related news.

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo has confirmed that the Switch will require a day one update in order to access the eShop. Thankfully, the update will download in the background, meaning that your precious Zelda time won't be interrupted. While we have yet to play the new Shovel Knight campaign, I was thoroughly impressed with how well FAST RMX ran on the Switch at a recent preview event. For any early adopters looking for an enjoyable racer, FAST RMX looks to be a solid choice.

The lack of Virtual Console at launch may be disappointing, but with only five games previously announced for March 3rd, at least the Switch's bare-bones launch lineup just got considerably bigger.

Bethesda shows the insane shape-shifting potential of 'Prey'

In the upcoming Prey, Mankind is in serious trouble. With the alien Typhon over-running the once prosperous Talos 1 space station our fate falls into the hands of unlikely protagonist, Morgan Yu. Having been experimented on and given Typhon abilities, the latest trailer shows Yu learning to mimic his surroundings, opting to defend the human race by turning into vaguely useful household objects.

Using these unique abilities, players will be able to harness the deadly power of objects found on the space station, transforming into lamps, teapots and even a freshly-ripened banana.

While these powers are unlikely to strike fear into the hearts of the demonic Typhon, the I Am Bread-esque shenanigans allow players to solve unique puzzles and access new areas. Thankfully, As Yu levels up the Mimic Matter ability, he can transform into more intimidating objects, eventually controlling the likes of Operator robots and security turrets.

Prey will also feature a slew of other Typhon abilities, including the power to control the minds of other humans. Serving as a reboot to the 2006 FPS of the same name, fans were disappointed to learn that this new entry in the franchise wasn't the resurrection of the cancelled Prey 2. After spending some time with the upcoming game however, we're pleased to say that the new Prey is shaping up to a unique and tense experience - and one that constantly kept us guessing.

The game will be released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on the 5th of May.

Samsung's Gear VR returns with a motion controller

While there was no shortage of new Samsung hardware, the company's MWC showcase also had a new Gear VR headset to show off, with a new controller. Adding motion input (as well as a few more buttons) lets you navigate and interact with VR content without having to paw at the headset's buttons like we had to do previous iterations. Alongside a clickable touchpad, there's a trigger, home, back and volume keys. The controller also has an accelerometer, gyrometer and magnetic sensors built-in, and the new hardware will work with Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, the Note 5, as well as the Galaxy S6 series.

The controller, which looks nothing like Oculus' own Touch peripherals, also comes with a wrist strap, offering a Wii-esque form of safety against flying controllers. The new Gear VR headset packs in 42mm lenses with a 101-degree field of view and improved distortion correction tech to further reduce motion sickness, and if you don't need the controller, there's a strap built into the headset to house it. The controller itself doesn't need charging -- you just need to replace a AAA battery inside. A spokesperson says that more than 70 new controller titles are already in development, and existing touchpad apps will also work with the remote.

We'll be looking to strap on the new version as soon as we can, and see how it compares to Google's Daydream View, which also packed a controller. Expect to hear more from us soon!

Click here to catch up on the latest news from MWC 2017.

GoPro's deal with Huawei gives it a foothold in smartphones

Don't look now, but GoPro just shifted a little toward becoming a mobile app company. The action camera maker has struck a deal with Huawei that will see its intelligent video editor, Quik, integrated with the photo gallery app in the P10, P10 Plus and other smartphones packing newer versions of Huawei's EMUI interface. The centerpiece is a Highlights feature that uses Quik to automatically whip up a video based on your photos and videos, complete with backing music. Think of it as a more video-focusd spiritual successor to HTC's Zoe.

Appropriately, GoPro is sprucing up the stand-alone Quik app for Android and iOS users. There's an easier editing flow with new options to both personalize and stylize videos (similar to what P10 owners get), and it should be easier to pick songs and fine-tune the sound.

The Huawei move certainly doesn't signal an exit from hardware any time soon -- that's GoPro's bread and butter. Along with the Karma drone, however, it does signal a further attempt to diversify beyond GoPro's original camera business. Success with partnerships like this not only puts GoPro's technology in front of more people, it gives the company a source of revenue that isn't tied to its device release cycles -- it might not have to worry so much about taking its time with a new camera.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from MWC 2017.

The Huawei Watch 2 is a strong showcase for Android Wear 2

ndroid Wear 2.0 just made its debut on a pair of LG-made watches, and as expected, we're starting to see other companies show off their own takes on the new system. Huawei is unveiling its Watch 2 at MWC 2017, which runs the new Google OS in a sportier body. It will be available in the US starting in April, and in some European countries in March for 349 Euros (about $350). From my brief time with preview versions of the new timepiece, which is also available in a Classic model, I'm already impressed by how comfortably light and sturdy they are.

Gallery: Huawei Watch 2 hands-on | 8 Photos

The classic Watch 2, with its black face and leather band, is very basic-looking -- so much so that instead of calling it wrist candy, you'd be better off calling it wrist... salad. But what it lacks in style, it makes up for with comfort and quality. The watch's round 1.2-inch face (which is the same size as the LG Watch Style's, by the way) is surrounded by an etched ceramic bezel that, despite somewhat engulfing the otherwise dainty display, adds a premium feel to the device. The hybrid leather band is smooth leather on top and jointed rubber on the underside, making it look good on the outside while feeling comfortably flexible.

The regular model, on the other hand, has a sportier design than its relatively vanilla counterpart. I liked the yellow accents on the grey/yellow one I tried, and I was surprised and pleased at how light the Sport felt without coming off cheap. Other color options of the Watch 2 include black and bright orange bands. If you prefer a strap of your own, you can easily swap one out using the clasp on the underside.

Unlike the LG Watch Style and Watch Sport, the new Huawei wearables don't offer a rotating crown on the side of their face. That's a bit of a bummer, since Android Wear 2.0's new scrolling interface, which can be controlled by the knob on the LG devices, was one of our favorite new features. You can still use your finger to scroll up and down pages of apps or notifications, which isn't as fast, but is at least an improvement over Android Wear's originally swipe-heavy navigating system.

Not only is the Watch 2's look sportier, but its software has some bonuses for fitness fans as well. Huawei has added its own Fit feature that customizes workout plans for specific activities such as running, cycling or hanging out on the treadmill. No worries if the watch gets wet with your sweat or if you are caught in the rain mid-jog: the device meets IP68 industry standards for water resistance and will survive.

The rest of the Huawei Watch 2's specs aren't bad, either. You'll get NFC support for Android Pay and a heart rate sensor on both the regular and Classic versions, which are two features the LG Watch Style did not offer. The regular Watch 2 will also have LTE support in certain regions, although it's not clear if that will be available in US models. Both editions of the Watch 2 are powered by the same Snapdragon 2100 chipset as is on the LG models. But Huawei has a big lead over LG here in one key area: battery life. By squeezing a 420mAh cell in these devices, Huawei promises up to two days worth of endurance for the new wearables. Plus, with a new feature called Watch Mode, which disables everything except for a watchface and the pedometer, the Watch 2 can last an impressive 25 days.

That's a pretty lofty claim -- one we're hoping to be able to test out very soon. At just €329 (roughly $350), the Watch 2 is reasonably priced for what it offers. It will be available stateside in April, when we'll know exactly how much it will retail here for. Meanwhile, those hoping for promising Android Wear 2.0 alternatives to the LG watches have something to look forward to.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from MWC 2017.